The Dark Knight Rises Cinematographer: The Avengers Was "Appalling"

Wally Pfister, cinematographer on movies like The Italian Job, Moneyball and most recently director of photography on Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises, was not a fan of Marvel's The Avengers.

In fact, the filmmaker was harshly critical of the film's visual storytelling, which he claims made choices based on money rather than art and distracted from the story.

"What’s really important is storytelling. None of it matters if it doesn’t support the story," Pfister told Arts Sarasota (via CBM). "I thought The Avengers was an appalling film. They’d shoot from some odd angle and I’d think, why is the camera there? Oh, I see, because they spent half a million on the set and they have to show it off. It took me completely out of the movie. I was driven bonkers by that illogical form of storytelling."

Pfister has been working as a cinematographer with Nolan for years, dating back to 2002's Insomnia and working on all three Batman films.

While fans have been flaming one another on message boards and comment threads for about a year over whether The Avengers or The Dark Knight Rises will be/is/was better, the filmmakers have stayed out of that kind of discussion for the most part. A notable exception is Matthew Modine, who played Deputy Commissioner Foley in The Dark Knight Rises.

Modine said, among other things, “Batman would tear off Iron Man’s head and s**t down his neck. well, actually B. Wayne wouldn’t, because he’s got real class.”

On the other side of the aisle, Thor and The Avengers star Chris Hemsworth chimed in about The Dark Knight Rises back in June, saying "Christopher Nolan is awesome. So is Christian Bale and pretty much everyone in the film. I’ve got love for the whole cast, obviously.”